Microsoft Employee: Ballmer Gets Some Office for iPad Credit Too

Satya Nadella is collecting many kudos for delivering a shiny new Microsoft in his first 60 days as chief executive. But not every new path was necessarily set by the new boss.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Reuters

Reddit, a taste maker for things online, held one of its popular “Ask Me Anything” chats Tuesday with members of the team that worked on Office for the iPad. Nadella had introduced the long-awaited Office apps for Apple’s tablet at a media gathering last month in San Francisco. The event became exhibit A of his willingness to ditch Microsoft’s old ways.

One of the company’s product managers reminded in the Reddit Q&A what many people have been saying: Nadella wasn’t the one to green light the move.

“Steve Ballmer approved the plan to ship Office for iPad,” said an employee who identified himself as Kaberi, a technical product manager for Office on the iPad. “Since Satya has been CEO, he has been very supportive of the effort.”

The question Kaberi was answering: “Is Satya the MSsiah [sic] like the tech media is portraying him? How much of the recent headline-making moves can be credited to him, and how many were Ballmer’s?”

Still, when Ballmer had said Office eventually was coming to the iPad, he didn’t give any sense of when that might be. Microsoft had been developing the software for years. Nadella, in being at the helm when the product finally saw the light of day, gets to reap the rewards.

For how long, though, is the question. While Nadella is still basking in the honeymoon period, he still faces thorny questions, like what Microsoft plans to do with its $7 billion Nokia acquisition.